Telling it like it really was

MemoirFirst things first. Dinah O'Dowd is the mother of George O'Dowd, who most of us will know better as Boy George, colourful pop star, well-publicised drug addict and lifelong devotee of the dressing-up box.

You'd expect a memoir by his mother to catalogue her son's rise to stardom and the less than salubrious points along that journey, but Cry Salty Tears has a very different star. Dinah's late husband, Gerald O'Dowd, is the figure who casts the longest shadow over this sparsely written and affecting memoir.

Their violent relationship is catalogued in detail, from his beating of her when she was seven months pregnant with George right up until the day five years ago she discovered after decades of mental and physical abuse that there was another woman on the scene. An early chapter sets the matter-of-fact tone for the book when O'Dowd describes life in a two-room tenement in 1950s Dublin.

"It wasn't an Angela's Ashes scenario," she writes, before going on to describe an impoverished childhood - the family's pet rabbit was killed to make stew - which, to varying degrees, many of her generation of Dubliners will recognise. She was beaten and constantly criticised by her mother, who had lived in Goldenbridge Orphanage until she was 16. Her belief that "women live longer because they cry" inspired the title of the book. Her father, a chronic gambler, also administered beatings to his children and at least once attacked his wife while in a drunken stupor and almost left her for dead.

The connection between her "happy" childhood and the fact that she ended up sharing her life with a callous, hyper-critical, compulsive-gambling wife- beater of a husband is never fully explored. This is, perhaps, no bad thing and allows readers to draw their own conclusions. Her reasons for enduring the abuse appear to be a mix between a serious commitment to the marriage vows, fear for her family's survival and, of course, love. The book was initially going to be called "Handsome Bastard". When Dinah fell for Gerald, she fell hard.

Her perseverance with this abusive man also appears to have had its roots in a teenage pregnancy. O'Dowd became pregnant at 19 with her first son. The father of her child, a feckless character called Seamus, who also beat her occasionally, agreed initially to marry her and then disappeared from the scene. Despite pressure in the hospital when Richard was born, the support of her mother and father meant she avoided being put in a convent and giving up her baby for adoption. But the shame of her situation led to her leaving Richard behind and fleeing to England, where she despaired of ever meeting anyone who would accept her "illegitimate" son. Not long after taking a barmaid's job in London she found Gerald O'Dowd - and that is when her problems really began.

The first sign that all was not well with her husband came early in their marriage when Dinah O'Dowd stopped to show a man her wedding ring while in view of her husband. Paranoid and insecure, Gerald raged at her for this act of betrayal, accusing his pregnant wife of infidelity as he punched her full in the face. She tried, unsuccessfully, to abort the child, but Kevin arrived and the pattern continued.

Seven months pregnant with George, another of Gerald's tantrums saw Dinah being kicked and pummelled on the floor. It was 1962 and Richard had by now come to live with Dinah and her new family. Fearing for her safety, she ran away with her children to her mother's house in Birmingham, where her parents had moved from Dublin. Her father was adamant that she should return to London despite the abuse.

"You can't take a man's children away from him," he said. "You've made your bed, now lie in it."

And lie in it she did.

THE ABUSE CONTINUED as the family grew to six children, including the youngest, a girl, Siobhan. The worst attack came in 1977 when Gerald pulled a knife on Dinah, but these acts, which sapped the very essence of the Dublin woman, were only one part of the story. Like many housewives she learned to "stretch a pound like it was elastic" as her husband gambled away the housekeeping or got mired in dodgy business dealings. Her husband's behaviour grew more erratic and he began hoarding junk in every room.

Meanwhile, her son George, who wrote the foreword to the book, was rising through the New Romantic scene with his band, Culture Club. Soon, her son's drug-taking eclipsed the problems of her violent relationship and her struggle became that of a mother desperate to save her son. When George underwent group therapy for his drug addiction, his father came into contact with reiki healing and, within months, became a practitioner himself, or "got a bit spiritual", as Dinah describes it.

She learned of his extra-marital relationship after making an attempt to clear out some of his junk. He then left Dinah for the new woman.

She now believes that her husband, who was terrified of being alone and experienced severe bouts of depression and paranoia, may have suffered from Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. She writes that she would have tried to persuade him to seek help for this had he not died suddenly on holiday with his new family.

Moments of almost unintentional levity from this salt-of-the-earth Dubliner pepper this memoir.

"I was never one for make-up," she writes. "So where Georgie gets that from, I don't know."

In another gem, she admits: "I was totally green about homosexuals; little did I know I was going to have one myself in a couple of years time."

THE READER DOESN'T have to like or even understand it, but until her husband's death Dinah never stopped loving him. She did, however, have a strong urge to tell it like it really was, especially when, at his funeral, the glowing testaments to the man she married did not tally with the violence and cruelty contained in her own. She later held her own memorial Mass for her husband.

What this book lacks in literary merit, it makes up for in searing honesty, down-to-earth description and the authentic voice of a woman who has suffered and survived. Yes, in the past, Dinah O'Dowd's biggest claim to fame was being Boy George's mother. With the publication of this book the 1980s superstar with a penchant for eyeliner becomes just another one of brave Dinah O'Dowd's sons.

Róisín Ingle is an Irish Times journalist

Cry Salty Tears By Dinah O'Dowd Century, 249pp. £9.99